


A promise written in threads of red

by naye



Series: Days of living dangerously, happy [4]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 06:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5655934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naye/pseuds/naye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unexpected gift; a long-awaited promise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A promise written in threads of red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skuldchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuldchan/gifts).



 

They left another Circle Tower in flames. Hawke and Anders had been too late to save the First Enchanter from Tranquility, but in focusing all of the Templars’ attention on herself, she had guaranteed the freedom of all her acolytes and apprentices. Some of the mages lingered still, attempting to put the fires out – or boost them – but the Senior Enchanters had taken the younger charges and headed south, where Bethany would be waiting for them.

As the oppressive grey sky darkened into dusk, the glow of the Tower blaze turned the clouds an ugly orange in the distance. It was with that looming over them that they sought shelter under the drooping branches of an old fir, daring only the smallest fire in a carefully dug pit. While Anders heated a meager soup of wild herbs and beef jerky, Hawke went to gather some springy heather to put between the gnarly roots and their bedroll. This far away from the main road, and with her trusty Mabari sitting guard, maybe they could allow themselves the luxury of sharing a blanket rather than sleeping in shifts? Hawke put her fragrant bundle down and stretched – first her arms, then her shoulders, feeling the stiffness in them from bruising and fighting and too many nights on the cold ground. She sighed, and went to gather an extra armful of heather – not exactly the down mattress she’d had in Kirkwall, but every little bit of padding would help.

It got dark quickly in the forest, and when Hawke returned she nearly missed their tree – would have missed it, if not for the dog’s low woof drawing her attention. Anders had done a good job shielding the fire’s light, and since every inch of her reeked of far worse smoke, it hadn’t caught her attention. “Thanks, boy,” she said, and the Mabari grinned his doggy grin at her before lying back down with his slobbery rabbit. Hawke sighed a bit enviously – at least one of them would eat well. But dogs couldn’t live on greens, and neither she nor Anders had been in any mood to stalk and kill and skin and dress anything for their dinner tonight. The Mabari had offered to share, but Anders’ face had made Hawke turn their proud hunter down. Gently.

Ducking to push the low fir branches aside, she could straighten on the other side – the branches were like massive ribs, the lowest several feet over her head, thinning and feathering down the sides of the living cave. Hawke smiled at Anders by the tiny fire, and went to dump her heather in the hollow between two thick roots. In getting it evenly spread out the heady scent of fir needles mixed with the sweetness of the small purple flowers – a far more pleasant smell than what clung to her skin.

“Hungry, love?” Anders asked from where he was sitting on the other side of the trunk, and Hawke nearly tripped over herself in her haste to get something in her belly. She only barely managed to refrain from snatching the tin cup out of Anders’ hands, but he just grinned and produced half a fresh loaf of bread from somewhere.

“I love you,” Hawke said around a mouthful of the stuff, and Anders looked very pleased, even as he munched enthusiastically on the other half. She was too starved to pause for further conversation, but before long the food was finished and Hawke was warmer and fuller than she had been. She was just contemplating whether she’d need to make a run to the creek down the hill before bedtime when she noticed Anders fidgeting, looking strangely shifty across the flames dying in the damp pit.

Hawke was watching him curiously as he stood, and before she could crack a joke about something having crawled into his breeches he dropped to his knees next to her. For a second she was concerned that this meant she had missed some earlier sign of injury, but there were no lines of pain in Anders’ face – in fact, he was smiling. A bit hesitantly, perhaps, but Hawke was used to his half-moods, when Anders would be feeling something else than Justice. “Anything on your mind?” she prompted him.

Anders nodded, and reached for her hand. Curious, Hawke let him take it, and he placed something small and supple in her palm. “I wanted you to have this,” he said, in a slight rush.

Hawke looked down, and by the glow of the embers she could see a buckskin pouch. She looked questioningly at Anders.

“Open it,” he encouraged her.

Opening the drawstrings, Hawke plucked out something thin and light – a cord? No, a bracelet, made of soft string woven together in a pattern Hawke immediately recognized, though she had never held one of her own before. She grinned, surprised but happy. “Is this a betrothal knot?”

Anders nodded.

“And you – you made this? For me?”

“There was a surprising amount of crafting going on in the Fereldan Circle,” he said. “Something about keeping our hands busy.”

Hawke had seen village youths with these in Lothering, of course, but never worn one herself. She held it in her hand – such a small thing, a twisted curl of yarn. “And you know what it means?”

Anders laughed. “Why else would I give it to you, if not because I know and want what it means?”

The promise of a life together. Hawke closed her fist around it. Back in Kirkwall, she had given Anders a key. It had meant something, then, but she had never put words to it – neither one of them had.

“Don’t you want it?”

Oh, Anders. Always so quick to believe the worst of himself. Hawke shook her head. “Of course I want it, I’m just… Why? Why now?” She looked at Anders, and he looked pensive – or possibly evasive. “Is it because – was it when I almost got stabbed by that Templar? Or the spell that knocked me out the other day? Or when that mob cornered us?” It was a few examples she could think off of the top of her head where Anders might have thought he would lose her. They’d all happened in the past week. But still – why not before?

“Oh.” She realized the other part of her question – that’s why Anders still hadn’t answered. Because he didn’t want to remind her of those three years in Kirkwall, and what it meant that he _hadn’t_ given it to her then. “You didn’t want to make a promise you thought you would have to break – or that _I_ would have had to break,” she blurted out. “In Kirkwall. Those years there – you didn’t make one because you didn’t think you had a chance at a life together, not after the Chantry.”

Anders nodded miserably.

“Oh, _Anders_ ,” Hawke said, and pulled him in for a rough kiss. No wonder he had waited. And now it had been months – long enough that he could be absolutely sure she wasn’t secretly planning on turning on him (he _would_ think that, after all), long enough that he’d seen how little it might take for one of them to be left alone. Breaking apart from the kiss, she glared at him – on principle, because she was only mad that she hadn’t been able to do this long ago – and slipped the bracelet over her left hand. Remembering what she’d learned in Lothering, she found the tiny dangly ends to the bracelet and pulled them tightly until it fitted snugly on her wrist, and the knots had closed on themselves.

“There.” Hawke said. “Your promise. You’re not getting out of it.”

Anders stared at her for a moment, voiceless and breathless and beautiful in all of his raw emotion, and then he grabbed her for a kiss that made her glad they had a bed of sorts to fall into tonight. Together.


End file.
